Probability
by Elske
Summary: Postwar, Neville&Tonks, [theirloveissodeadclumsy!]. [I'll show them from not bloody likely, she says, before kissing him again.]


He likes it best when he gets sent out on miscellaneous sorts of mysterious "Order Business" with Miss Tonks, mostly because she doesn't make him nervous. There's nothing imposing about her, he thinks, and he knows that she'd never laugh at him if he did something stupid because he's seen her break three dishes and fall flat on her face after tripping over nothing, so that's comforting.

"In we go," she says brightly, opening the door to the pub, gesturing with a jerk of her head that Neville should go first. Her hair is waist-length today and veela-blonde; strands of it flutter into Neville's face, and it's obvious from that that she's more used to shorter hairstyles. "In we go, then?" she says again, and Neville brushes Miss Tonks's hair out of his face and goes through the door, crosses the room to their usual table. He's not quite sure why Order Business with Miss Tonks always seems to end at the pub, but he knows better than to argue with it. The other Aurors never seem to invite him along when they go out at the end of the day, after all; he's considered telling Miss Tonks this, but then thought better of it.

She beams, drops into her seat and slides one of the drinks across the table to Neville. "Bottoms up, eh, Nevs?"

Neville's nose wrinkles. "What's _in_ this?" he asks, staring down at the swirling contents of the cup. It's bright magenta, and seems to resemble one of his more memorable failures in Professor Snape's class.

Tonks shrugs. "No idea, but it's _pink_, can't be too bad, can it? Bartender's favourite, half-price! Cheers, then!" She holds up her own drink, waiting; Neville makes the monumental decision to trust her, picks up his drink and brings the two glasses together with an audible clink. He's surprised; it's something sweet, vaguely cranberry-flavoured, and slightly fizzy.

Somewhere in the background, someone turns on a radio; there is a soft pop and a bit of static and then a familiar voice tuned in loud and clear: _Jordan, Voice of the WWN, here live from the Ministry of Magic, Department of Justice, with the Scrimgeour Death Eater Trials! It's the fifth day with Lucius Malfoy on the stand and…_

Neville lets out a small moan and takes his head reflexively in his hands; Tonks clucks her tongue and gets to her feet. "Oi, Bletchley, turn that rubbish off," she shouts in the general direction of the bartender. To everyone's surprise, he complies. "There, that's better, innit?" she says to Neville, who looks up and gives her a small smile.

"Thanks," he says, and she grins at him over the top rim of her now mostly-empty drink. This is one of the things Neville likes best about Miss Tonks, he thinks, it's that she seems to _understand_. She's one of the only ones not to treat him differently after the Scrimgour trial of Rabastan Lestrange – a horribly long drawn-out affair, constantly covered by the WWN and the Daily Prophet, with the end result being that the entire wizard community knowing far more than was necessary about the lives of Neville's parents.

She gets up, goes to the bar, brings them both refills. "Here, just in case," she says, passing one to Neville before sitting down. She sits on the trailing ends of her veela-hair, and scowls, yanks the hair away. "It's better off short, I think," she says, grinning at Neville. And then, apropos of nothing, "They were my favourite babysitters, you know? Your parents."

The flinch at the mention of his parents is automatic, these days, but Neville amends it with a smile. "Were they, really? I didn't know?"

"Yeah, absolutely," says Tonks. "I loved it there. Your dad was my favourite in the whole world; I remember once he made flower-garlands to wear in our hair, and your mum scolded him for picking all the flowers." She smiles, almost wistfully. "I went home and said I wanted to marry someone just like your dad when I grew up and Pops said that wasn't bloody likely and Mums punched him in the shoulder."

Neville laughs, at that. "What did he mean, not bloody likely?" he asks.

Tonks takes a quick gulp of her drink. "Well…he wasn't quite the…marrying type, not really?" she offers, gently.

He feels himself blushing. It's a nice euphemism, 'not the marrying type,' Neville thinks. Everyone who reads the newspapers or listens to the wireless knows exactly what kind of 'type' Franklin Longbottom was, thanks to the seventh day of Rabastan Lestrange's trial when – with Veritaserum proof – Rabastan managed to argue exactly what he'd been doing with Frank the night the attacks occurred, in great detail, at that. He managed to prove that he'd been used by Bellatrix and Rabastan and bore no responsibility for that; all of his other crimes, of course, earned him the Dementor's Kiss, so it's uncertain what good was achieved by telling that particular story to the world. Apparently, they'd been having an affair for years. And Rabastan turned out not to be the only one, of course. But details like those are even more useless.

"Of course, he did marry your mother," continues Tonks. "More than we can say for Remus, innit?" She looks down at her hands, there, where her engagement ring _isn't_.

"Probably because he didn't want to hurt you," Neville surprises himself by saying. "I mean, maybe it's better this way, because now he's being honest. I wouldn't want to marry someone that isn't honest, and I'd never want to hurt someone I loved." It's probably a cliché, but he feels like it needs to be said anyway because he doesn't like to see Miss Tonks sad. "Although, everyone's probably telling you that, right, Miss Tonks?" he adds, smiles, sips quickly at his drink so she doesn't notice he's blushing.

"Miss Tonks," she echoes, a bit bemused. "You don't need the Miss, you know, you don't have to be so formal."

Neville shrugs, one-shouldered. "I can't just call you _Tonks_, it doesn't sound right, and you don't let anyone but Remus call you Nympha…"

"Don't say it," she interrupts, quickly. "Don't say it, please, Neville, don't say it." Neville quiets, and she reaches for her drink, drains the cup, blinks at Neville, smiles. "Are you the marrying type, then, Mister Longbottom?"

He's caught off-guard by the question – not that he hasn't been asked something similar dozens of times, especially _lately_, but he simply wasn't _expecting_ it. His reply is stammered, nonsensical, and Tonks grins.

She leans across the table then, and kisses him; Neville simply wasn't expecting that either. And he's never been kissed by a girl before, not properly-kissed anyway and it's really quite nice, he finds. 

He looks up at her, adorably starry-eyed, and she beams. "I'll show them from not-bloody-likely," she murmurs, and then she kisses him again.


End file.
